Black mark for Labour on primary school places

“Labour is today publishing analysis showing that there will be a shortfall of 120,000 primary school places by September this year”

Labour Party press release, 23 July 2013

The background

Labour’s education swots say they have found something new in a report published back in March by the National Audit Office (NAO). And it’s not good news.

Parents are in for a “summer of worry”, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg said, because this September there will be a shortfall of 120,000 primary school places.

FactCheck wonders how such a red alert could have gone unnoticed for four months.

If it’s true, Labour deserves top marks for flagging it up. FactCheck investigates.

The analysis

In March, the NAO issued a warning that if the government didn’t react to the shortage of primary school places, there would be a shortfall of 240,000 places by September 2014.

The figure is based on estimates from the Department for Education which, crucially, take into account rising population numbers.

The report states: “The Department estimated in February 2013 that 256,000 places, 240,000 primary and 16,000 secondary, are still required from May 2012 to 2014/15, reflecting the fact that local authorities have continued to forecast increasing numbers of pupils.”

The shortfall however, doesn’t fall in a nice equal pattern across the country. Some schools have extra places going free, while others are buckling under the weight of demand.

The NAO looked at the figures across England and found that 113 of the 326 local authorities in England will have far too many places – with a surplus of more than 5 per cent expected by September 2014.

But on the flip side, it found that 32 local authorities will have a shortfall of more than 5 per cent.

London authorities are facing the biggest shortages – Croydon, for example, is worst off with predictions of a 15.8 per cent shortfall. Waltham Forest, Sutton, Slough and Redbridge are all facing shortfalls of more than 10 per cent.

If only parents could up-sticks and find jobs in the Derbyshire Dales by 2014, they would find a surplus of 23.7 per cent primary school places – or in North Warwickshire, there is expected to be a 38.8 per cent surplus of places by 2014.

Today, the government insisted that it will create 110,000 extra primary school places by September, on top of the existing 400,000 surplus primary school places across England.

The Department for Education also told us: “We are spending £5billion by 2015 on creating new school places — more than double the amount spent by the previous government in the same timeframe.

“In addition nine out of ten primary free schools approved last month are in areas of basic need, and last week we announced a further £820million to create 74,000 extra places where they are most needed.”

But Labour argues this is not enough – claiming that even with the extra 110,000 there will still be a 120,000 shortage.

So how did Labour come up with that figure?

It found a table in the NAO report (Figure 4) showing population estimates based on local authority aggregated forecasts.

These figures show that by this September, local authorities are expecting the number of pupils to rise by 230,000.

7 reader comments

Philip Edwardssays:

Cathy/Emma,

Will you please stop using the term “Labour” for this gang of tories in mufti? As they are only too happy to tell you, the “right” (pun intended) term is New Labour. You might as well give them the discredit they work so hard to obtain.

Talking of credit……top right of this blog page……..which literate genius at C4 News managed to spell “follow” wrong? Kind of inappropriate for an educayshun peece don’t you think m8?
:-)

But the NAO said there would be a shortfall of 240,000 primary places by September 2014. The Government says it’s going to provide a further 110,000 places by September 2013 but it’s unclear from your analysis whether these are all primary places. If they are all primary places then this leaves a shortfall of 130,000 places by September 2014 unless the Government finds money to fund extra places where they are needed before September 2014.

Hi Janet, Emma from FactCheck here. The government does mean to create 110,000 primary school places & there are 400,000 existing surplus primary school places – sorry I will make that clearer. Take your point about the remaining shortfall (I was just addressing Labour’s claim) – the Department told us: “We are spending £5billion by 2015 on creating new school places — more than double the amount spent by the previous government in the same timeframe. In addition nine out of ten primary free schools approved last month are in areas of basic need, and last week we announced a further £820million to create 74,000 extra places where they are most needed.”
I hope that helps! Thanks

Emma – thanks for your reply. I expect you know this already – the map on page 20 of the NAO report which you cite shows which areas in England have a need for extra places.

It might be interesting to check how many of the free schools that eventually open in September 2013 are actually “in areas of basic need”. According to the Government “need” is not just a need for more places. It’s a “need” for “good school places”. The latter description could be used to justify setting up a free school where there is a surplus of places but where no local school is “outstanding”.

The Government has a track record of opening free schools where there’s already a surplus eg Beccles Free School. And St Michael’s Catholic Secondary School, a free school in Camborne, Cornwall, with only 90 pupils has been opened in an area with 700 surplus places. Route39, a proposed free school in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Devon, would be in an area with surplus places.